14

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

c ^ p - time of the Commonwealth, the Princess Elizabeth died atigs 5 . Carisbrook, it was loudly asserted that Cromwell had stoopedto the senseless and dastardly wickedness of mixing noxiousdrugs with the food of a young girl whom he had no concei-vable motive to injure.* A few years later, the rapid decom-position of Cromwell’s own corpse was ascribed by many to adeadly potion administered in his medicine. The death ofCharles the Second could scarcely fail to occasion similar ru-mours. The public ear had been repeatedly abused by storiesof Popish plots against his life. There was, therefore, inmany minds, a strong predisposition to suspicion; and therewere some unlucky circumstances which, to minds so predis-posed, might seem to indicate that a crime had been perpe-trated. The fourteen Doctors who deliberated on the King’scase contradicted each other and themselves. Some of themthought that his fit was epileptic, and that he should be suf-fered to have his doze out. The majority pronounced himapoplectic, and tortured him during some hours like an Indianat a stake. Then it was determined to call his complaint afever, and to administer doses of bark. One physician, how-ever, protested against this course, and assured the Queenthat his brethren would kill the King among them. Nothingbetter than dissension and vacillation could be expected fromsuch a multitude of advisers. But many of the vulgar not un-naturally concluded, from the perplexity of the great mastersof the healing art, that the malady had some extraordinaryorigin. There is reason to believe that a horrible suspiciondid actually cross the mind of Short, who, though skilful inhis profession, seems to have been a nervous and fancifulman, and whose perceptions were probably confused by dreadof the odious imputations to which he, as a Roman Catholic,

* Clarendon mentions this calumny with just scorn. “According tothe charily of the time towards Cromwell, very many would have it be-lieved to be by poison, of which there was no appearance, nor any proofever after made.” Book xiv.